Persepolis wins Cannes Jury Prize
Marjane Satrapi's animated film draws fire from Iranian government
May 29, 2007
(Source: www.bcdb.com)
Iranian government officials lashed out when the black-and-white animated film Persepolis won the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. They claimed the movie, based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Iranian emigré Marjane Satrapi, is Islamophobic.
"Islamophobia in Western drama started in France, and producing and highlighting the anti-Iranian film Persepolis in Cannes falls in line with this Islamophobia," huffed Mehdi Kalhor, a cultural advisor to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Persepolis attempts to "sabotage Iranian culture and will not be the last anti-Iranian film," produced around the world, Kalhor told the Fars news agency.
Former Iranian foreign minister Dr. Ali Akbar Velayati, who currently advises supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, used Persepolis as evidence that the United States is trying to "encourage forces opposed to the authorities in any way possible."
The movie is an adaptation of the first black-and-white graphic novel by Satrapi. In the book, she describes her childhood during and after the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979, and the strict Islamic theocracy, controlled by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that came into power soon afterwards. The child Marji, Satrapi's alter-ego, talks about the deep personal and political repression she experienced while growing up in theocratic Iran.
Its sequel, Persepolis 2, described Satrapi's life during the 1980 war between Iran and Iraq. It won the 2002 Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Scenario, and received a place on Time magazine's 'Best Comix of 2003' year-end list.
For Pantheon Books' North American release, Persepolis 1 and 2 were combined into a single volume, as was Persepolis 3 and 4, which detailed Satrapi's adolescence in Austria, return to Iran, marriage and eventual divorce, before she emigrated to France.
The movie was written and directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. Persepolis shared the prestigious Jury Prize with Mexican entrant Carlos Reygadas, who directed the live-action film Stellet Licht.
Persepolis was a French production and will be distributed in North America by Sony Pictures Classics. It features the voices of Catherine Déneuve, Chiarra Mastroianni (voicing the role of Marji) and Gena Rowlands.
This year's Cannes jury included its president, British director Stephen Frears, Australia's Toni Collette, actor Maggie Cheung of Hong Kong, and Turkey's Nobel prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk.
"Even if this is a universal film, I want to dedicate this prize to all Iranians," Satrapi said to the French news service Agence France-Presse.
Fun Fact: Marjane Satrapi's mother was a great-granddaughter of Nasser-al-Din Shah, who ruled Persia (now Iran) from 1848 to 1896. He was part of the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Persia from 1781 to 1925.
However, Satrapi discounts the relationship, saying, "The kings of the Qajar dynasty . . . had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by each generation you have, I don't know, ten to fifteen thousand princes and princesses. There's nothing extremely special about that."
